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Re: Ideas for marketing a Kindle novel?

I'm currently working my way through Telonius' book and I'm up to Chapter 13. It's a little slow getting started and some of the terminology regarding the Priestess' order (the sashes and the different aspects of the Goddess) gets a little bewildering at times. The distinctions between Guardians, War-Lords, etc is a little fuzzy as well.

That said, now that I've progress further into the book, the characters are becoming much more strongly defined and encouraging. You have the character of Dela, a slightly cynical woman that draws on her vast experience but still empathises with Neblha, the novice. Elsbeth is the one we spend most time with, seeing the world through her eyes and the descriptions of the Seat of Stars and it's current political climate really help to clarify things.

The most recent chapters...it's like the firework has stopped fizzling and just shot up into the sky. I'm really looking forward to what happens next.

Re: Ideas for marketing a Kindle novel?

Originally Posted by The Succubus

I'm currently working my way through Telonius' book and I'm up to Chapter 13. It's a little slow getting started and some of the terminology regarding the Priestess' order (the sashes and the different aspects of the Goddess) gets a little bewildering at times. The distinctions between Guardians, War-Lords, etc is a little fuzzy as well.

That said, now that I've progress further into the book, the characters are becoming much more strongly defined and encouraging. You have the character of Dela, a slightly cynical woman that draws on her vast experience but still empathises with Neblha, the novice. Elsbeth is the one we spend most time with, seeing the world through her eyes and the descriptions of the Seat of Stars and it's current political climate really help to clarify things.

The most recent chapters...it's like the firework has stopped fizzling and just shot up into the sky. I'm really looking forward to what happens next.

Re: Ideas for marketing a Kindle novel?

Originally Posted by The Succubus

I'm currently working my way through Telonius' book and I'm up to Chapter 13. It's a little slow getting started and some of the terminology regarding the Priestess' order (the sashes and the different aspects of the Goddess) gets a little bewildering at times. The distinctions between Guardians, War-Lords, etc is a little fuzzy as well.

That said, now that I've progress further into the book, the characters are becoming much more strongly defined and encouraging. You have the character of Dela, a slightly cynical woman that draws on her vast experience but still empathises with Neblha, the novice. Elsbeth is the one we spend most time with, seeing the world through her eyes and the descriptions of the Seat of Stars and it's current political climate really help to clarify things.

The most recent chapters...it's like the firework has stopped fizzling and just shot up into the sky. I'm really looking forward to what happens next.

I've finished Chosen, and my review is on Amazon. I agree the novel is slow to get moving - Telonius is getting his ducks all in a row before all hell breaks loose. Once all the characters are set in place, and the background is drawn for us, the action begins. Then it's time to run for cover!

Re: Ideas for marketing a Kindle novel?

Finished Chosen of Harrekh.

Overall, I quite enjoyed the story. The characters, after a slightly rambling introduction become very solid and well fleshed out. A couple of them, particularly the Chosen's mother, are a little incoherent at times and it's hard to puzzle out their motives. The supporting cast of characters, such as Nebhla & Dela give a nicely human perspective to events. The Archer is a particular favourite of mine and I'm hoping for more "screen-time" in the next novel.

The Eight Faces of the Goddess thing, while hard to understand at first, makes a lot more sense once the story reaches the Seat of the Stars and we start to see it in context. Much of the politics (especially revolving around War-Lords and Standard Bearers) is confusing and it's hard to keep track of who out ranks who. The character of Devron is marred a little by this but when he's left to get on with the plot, he's a very likeable chap.

One comment that would really, really help - in the back of the book, Telonius included a brief cast of characters, similar to Game of Thrones. It's a good idea and one that could be expanded on by showing the political system of the world as well and how each person fits into it. Or as much as could be done without giving the story away.

I think I will re-read it when I have a bit more lesuire time and see if it's a bit clearer on a second run through. Don't let the muddy political stuff put you off though - the core story of the book is rock solid and I am eagerly awaiting the follow up - "Exiles of Harrekh".

****

Lensman, let me know when Scarlet is out and I'll happily give you a critique of it as well.

Re: Ideas for marketing a Kindle novel?

Originally Posted by Lensman

Thanks - I'll post here when it finally materialises on Amazon. My current target is in two weeks - everything should be in place by then. (I hope!)

Still hoping for next Monday for my launch date, but I seem to have spent forever struggling with the formatting for the Kindle. I've also tweaked the cover, added a back cover for the print on demand, and started proof-reading. I'm finding more mistakes and typos than I had expected...

Re: Ideas for marketing a Kindle novel?

I'm far more impulsive than you are. I felt the urge to put my book on the Kindle and I had it up within two days.

Note that I didn't say that being impulsive was a good thing. I have no cover, seven sales total, and about two hundred copies given away for free during promotions. Turns out that by signing up for KDP select, I barred myself from handing out any free e-copies to professional reviewers, which is a really bad thing - not sure that I made up for it in free copy publicity though. Apparently I made every mistake possible with the free promotion - Ididn't do all five days in a chunk, and did it on the first of the month, when a lot of other free promos run, so mine was just a drop in the bucket. I did wind up with three reviews and 4.3 stars, so I'm still hoping for good things.

Since you're not barred from that (yet at least) - you may find the following quite useful.http://www.theindieview.com/indie-reviewers/ - a list of reviewers of indie books and each one's criteria for review. A lot of them are backlogged but you may like it.

More useful: http://www.lindsayburoker.com/ - She has her self-publishing journey chronicled, along with things that explicitly did or did not provide her with extra sales. E.g. trying to sell on writing forums wasn't worth the time, but ad campaigns on Goodreads wound up generating more cash in sales than they cost to run.

Last edited by Talanic; 2012-09-19 at 03:25 PM.

You may think of me as:
Struggling amateur author #3284728

Book one is on the Kindle now. It's a mix of hard science fiction and fantasy. How's that work? Surprisingly well.

Re: Ideas for marketing a Kindle novel?

I'm far more impulsive than you are. I felt the urge to put my book on the Kindle and I had it up within two days.

I'm too much of a coward - I have to think through everything, plan it all, before I dare act.

Turns out that by signing up for KDP select, I barred myself from handing out any free e-copies to professional reviewers, which is a really bad thing - not sure that I made up for it in free copy publicity though.

I decided not to go for KDP Select, partly because I'm also trying to get Sorrel onto general epub formats and print on demand - now I'm even more glad I didn't go for it.

Since you're not barred from that (yet at least) - you may find the following quite useful.http://www.theindieview.com/indie-reviewers/ - a list of reviewers of indie books and each one's criteria for review. A lot of them are backlogged but you may like it.

More useful: http://www.lindsayburoker.com/ - She has her self-publishing journey chronicled, along with things that explicitly did or did not provide her with extra sales. E.g. trying to sell on writing forums wasn't worth the time, but ad campaigns on Goodreads wound up generating more cash in sales than they cost to run.

Thanks for both of those - I need all the help I can get! Lindsay's site, in particular, looks really useful.

Re: Ideas for marketing a Kindle novel?

Originally Posted by Talanic

Print on demand wouldn't be interfered with by KDP Select. Only the epub formats - and issuing free copies at your own discretion.

Shows how carefully I read the blurb on KDP Select. I got to the stage that it meant I could only sell in Kindle format, and abandoned it at that stage - I'd realised by the time I got that far that enough people have e-readers that aren't Kindles. KDP Select was a non-starter from there.

I'm still struggling with the necessary formatting for the three separate platforms, but I'm getting there.

Re: Ideas for marketing a Kindle novel?

Try to setup a facebook page for your book. That could get several people to take notice about it.
I don't own a Kindle, so a +1 to getting it across different platforms. I use my PSP to read books in .pdf files.

Re: Ideas for marketing a Kindle novel?

Originally Posted by ThiagoMartell

Try to setup a facebook page for your book. That could get several people to take notice about it.
I don't own a Kindle, so a +1 to getting it across different platforms. I use my PSP to read books in .pdf files.

Thanks for the +1, but the Lulu version is epub, not pdf - maybe I need to look for a pdf option.

My facebook page for the novel is here, and the print on demand is now (sort-of) live at Amazon - put Sorrel in Scarlet into the Amazon searchline and it will appear, but for some reason the cover illustration doesn't materialise. I'm waiting for them to come back to me and explain why!

Re: Ideas for marketing a Kindle novel?

CurlyKitGirl reckons my spiel about the novel isn't any good - anyone else got any views or suggestions what I can do to improve it?

That's a bit better than the one I read earlier, maybe I read it before it was fully up?

Anyway, just went back and re-read your blurb, and I think one of the things that didn't work was that the first two sentences sound like they're quoted straight out of the book, and then you slip into a kind of omniscient narrator doing a voiceover after a cliffhanger.

That's not too bad I suppose, but maybe if there was a small paragraph detailing the dragon (Wrack I'm assuming) knocking her plane out of the sky quoted directly from the novel (so italicise it, and openly quote it), then have a new paragraph of your voiceover artist.

That could work.

EDIT:
It's definitely an intriguing book though from all I've heard of it, if I can get hold of a hard copy I'd buy it for a friend's birthday (which just passed) or Christmas (which hasn't passed).

Re: Ideas for marketing a Kindle novel?

Originally Posted by CurlyKitGirl

That's a bit better than the one I read earlier, maybe I read it before it was fully up?

Anyway, just went back and re-read your blurb, and I think one of the things that didn't work was that the first two sentences sound like they're quoted straight out of the book, and then you slip into a kind of omniscient narrator doing a voiceover after a cliffhanger.

That's not too bad I suppose, but maybe if there was a small paragraph detailing the dragon (Wrack I'm assuming) knocking her plane out of the sky quoted directly from the novel (so italicise it, and openly quote it), then have a new paragraph of your voiceover artist.

That could work.

Ooops. I can't quote that directly from the novel. The first lines of the novel read:

Spoiler

Show

Any landing you can walk away from is a good one.

This wasn't.

The novel starts moments after the crash, and the backstory gets filled in over the next few chapters - hence the style of the synopsis. The novel starts in media res. This was why the synopsis was difficult!

I'll have another go at it, and see how I do.

In the meantime, can I really terrify you all? I put together a 35 second video to plug the novel, which is on YouTube, here. No prizes for identifying the voice of Sorrel...

Re: Ideas for marketing a Kindle novel?

I was somewhat startled to discover that Kindle reviews on Amazon.co.uk do not materialise on Amazon.com - I'd assumed (naively) that both sites took any reviews that were going. Apparently not. Effectively, if you want a review to show on both, you have to post it seperately on each location.

Strange - apparently, Amazon reckons that English and American outlooks are different enough that we will not want to see reviews from our cousins across the Atlantic.

Re: Ideas for marketing a Kindle novel?

One of the most important steps to selling stories or novels is name recognition.

I'm of the opinion that the best way to get name recognition is to sell short stories. Short story anthologies and magazines are one of the few places where first time authors can send unsolicited submissions and expect to get a fair reading. Once you start appearing in A-list magazines, people will start to recognize your name and look for what else you have to offer.

Be forewarned, though--this is hard work. There's a lot of competition, and people usually get a lot of rejections before their first sale. And previous success is no guarantee of future success. Each story has to stand on its own. I've only sold a handful of stories so far, and I consider myself as making reasonably good progress at building a writing career.

I haven't tried to self-publish any novels on Amazon--I want to try traditional publishing first. I have put a couple of short stories on the Kindle (see my author page). These are stories which were published in magazines first, and were only put up on Amazon when the rights reverted to me because they were not freely available from the publisher. As you can tell from the lack of reviews (you can feel free to correct that), my small progress at publishing stories has yet to net me a lot of name recognition.

Still, I am making progress. I have a significant story coming out at Black Gate very soon (EDIT: Now out.), and I have something else in the works. I'm also continuing to submit stories to the magazines. Most importantly, the more I write, the better I become at it, and the more publishable my stories are.

Re: Ideas for marketing a Kindle novel?

I'm trying the local approach right now. My first box of twenty copies showed up this Friday. The cover wound up looking better than expected, for something made with the generic cover creator. Interior has a few glitches - no title page of any kind, and apparently page numbers got lost in the process of formatting. Next version will have that taken care of.

The first three copies were given as gifts - two to the local library and one to the owner of a game store. After all, all of his customers talk to him - if he likes it and is enthusiastic about it, there's a leg up.

Five more sold to people with whom I've done business before, four were given to family members, and two more are reserved for further publicity. Tomorrow morning I'm going to visit my alma mater to see if the journalism department is willing to put a review in the school newspaper; it seems likely. My boss is willing to put flyers on the pizza boxes to advertise as well, but I'm not quite ready for that.

You may think of me as:
Struggling amateur author #3284728

Book one is on the Kindle now. It's a mix of hard science fiction and fantasy. How's that work? Surprisingly well.

Re: Ideas for marketing a Kindle novel?

Originally Posted by Talanic

I'm trying the local approach right now. My first box of twenty copies showed up this Friday. The cover wound up looking better than expected, for something made with the generic cover creator. Interior has a few glitches - no title page of any kind, and apparently page numbers got lost in the process of formatting. Next version will have that taken care of.

The first three copies were given as gifts - two to the local library and one to the owner of a game store. After all, all of his customers talk to him - if he likes it and is enthusiastic about it, there's a leg up.

Five more sold to people with whom I've done business before, four were given to family members, and two more are reserved for further publicity. Tomorrow morning I'm going to visit my alma mater to see if the journalism department is willing to put a review in the school newspaper; it seems likely. My boss is willing to put flyers on the pizza boxes to advertise as well, but I'm not quite ready for that.

That's a good start - 15 out of twenty committed already. It does help having a physical book you can show people. I got my first copy and showed it to numerous people who have shown interest and said they would buy a copy. (On the other hand, my sales figures rather suggest that they never did ).

Re: Ideas for marketing a Kindle novel?

So far I've had one online sale of the book in hard copy, compared to about a dozen of the ebook. I think the good reviews I've received really helped, but they only appear on the ebook right now, and only on the USA Amazon.com.

I've also committed to $30 of advertising on goodreads, which so far has provided absolutely no sales. It could be the quality of my advertisements - I tend to do a poor job pitching the book.

You may think of me as:
Struggling amateur author #3284728

Book one is on the Kindle now. It's a mix of hard science fiction and fantasy. How's that work? Surprisingly well.